JVC KD-HDR50 head unit
Sony ES 3546 amp - the probable suspect in this tale of audio woe
Eclipse 8572s as the main/door speakers
6 inch sub 'engineered' to fit into a JL Audio stealthbox. The box is designed to fit an 8 inch sub.

8 guague Phoenix Gold wire from 12v to the amp

the head unit replaced a Sony ES cassette deck which was purchased at the same time as the amp. The Sony ES CD changer, also purchased at the same time, has been gone for a long time.

Basically the current equiptment is old, but some of it is still good. And by some I mean the Eclipse speakers can be repositioned as the 'rear' speakers and the PG wire will not be replaced.

FWIW I have already purchased the replacement equitpment. I was just wondering if anyone would care too follow along with the install and otherwise discuss such a riviting audio tale.

I'm interested in hearing what you are doing to it. That's a pretty involved setup. What kind of music do you crank through that?

Well that is the old stuff. My troubleshooting leads me to believe the amp has gone to audio heaven. The replacement has left LA heading towards Memphis as I am typing. Should be able to drop it straight in and everything be wonderful. Then I can yank it back out and do the install.

First of all there is no way to justify doing a project like this. The only reason is because I enjoy the hobby.

The backstoy goes that I had a new Ranger in early 95 and I wanted to get a nicer stereo for it. This was before EVERYTHING was on the interwebs. Back in those days you had your choice of getting garbage at Kmart or buying nicer crap from Circut City/Hi-Fi Buys ect. I went with Hi-Fi Buys because they sold the top end Sony gear - which is what I had decided I wanted. Now they did a good job, but as I found out years later they did not do exactly what I thought I paid for.

Anyways my thought process in the current upgrade/getting it to work again audio system went like this. The 94 Ranger has a 95 amp alternator which means that I have approximatly 66 amps of wiggle room for the audio system. A typical vehicle uses 30-40% of the amps for system usage. My Ranger is mostly NOT powered so I am going with 30%. Now I have 8 gauge wire already laid in the Ranger and this is not changing. This means I could go up to 50 amps, but the inline fuse is 40 amps so either way I am safe as far as the Ranger electrical system goes. This step is critical as it would be real easy to purchase equiptment that would require not only rewiring the stereo from battery to amp but getting a more powerful alternator for the Ranger.

So bottom line I am gold as long as the amp I buy is 40 amps or rated for 8 gauge wire.

After 2-3 days of research I decided on the Kenwood KAC-8405 amp. Based on a number of things. One of the factors was it is a smaller amp and I am mounting this puppy behind the passenger seat of a standard Ranger so in this case size matters. But I could have handled a larger amp. The real critical factors was the RMS output of the amp. 60 amps into 4 ohms for the main speakers matched perfectly with the Kenwood KFC-C6894PS speakers I am putting in the doors. The C6894PS are rated at 80 RMS at 4 ohms. That means that under normal conditions I will be driving the speakers at 75% of their max RMS - which is almost ideal. FWIW I choose to limit myself to Kenwood speakers and the Ranger door is designed for 6x8 speakers. This left me with only 3-4 speakers too choose from.

the other critical spec of the amp is the 180 RMS bridged output into 4 ohms. This is what I will be using to drive the MTX RTS8-04 which should drop nicely into the JL Audio stealthbox I purchased from Hi-Fi Buys back in the day. Ahhh back in the day, DINKing thru life with endless time and money - oh well lol. Anyways the MTX RTS8-04 supports 200 RMS at 4 ohms. Again almost ideal as under normal conditions I will be driving the Sub at 90% RMS.

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